[Cboldt]

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but Bush's take on al-Qaeda and Iraq was that the connection between the two created the risk of a future attack on the U.S. that could only be averted by brining down Saddam.

I'd even "water it down" more than that. There was never a promise of averting all attacks, and certainly no promise of averting a specific attack. I do believe that the intention (and a reasonable justification) was to reduce the capability to pull off terrorist attacks. Not stated, but implied, is that this reduced capability works in more places than the US.

I personally think it's keen to have the battles on the enemy's turf, instead of on ours.

[Agnes Heep]

Even if Saddam hadn't been involved, the process of kicking his sorry butt has undoubtedly had a sobering effect on any national leader who might think to crawl into bed with the terrorists. I think it will spare this country the horror of large-scale attacks for the foreseeable future, just as Israel's new policy of holding the gun to Arafat's head has bought them a period of relative quiet.

[Dog]

Rather, the White House is nervous that publicly discussing the links could trigger another set of leaks, most of them presumed to come from the CIA, attempting to discredit the new information. Those are battles the White House doesn't want to fight.

What the hell?